I'm still obsessed with macro photography [View all]

[mike_c]

I'm taking a road trip next month so maybe I'll get back to landscapes and other stuff. Lately I've been working on improving my lighting for macro subjects, especially with insects that often have reflective body parts that GLARE in harsh light.

Here's lookin' at you, kid. This is Monobia quadridens, the four toothed mason wasp. It's a specimen in my collection. If you're interested in the technical stuff, it's beneath the pic. Otherwise, just enjoy!

The actual wasp's head is about the size of a BB. Those are some wicked mandibles of doom!



Tech stuff: this was shot with a Nikon D7200, with a Nikon PB-4 bellows at full extension (about 200mm), using a reverse mounted 1960s El Nikkor 50mm f/1.28N enlarger lens at f/5.6, 1/250s, ISO 320. There were two off camera flashes with diffusers and mini-softboxes, and a couple of white card reflectors. It's a three image vertical panorama; each image is a stack of 200 exposures using a WeMacro focus rail with 15 micron steps, stacked with Helicon Focus, stitched together and post-processed with Photoshop. I've made an Allen Walls type macro lighting cage of PVC pipes. The long bellows extension makes lighting tough as the light attenuates fast at 200+ mm and chromatic aberration can be bad even with such a flat-field lens. I'm still not entirely happy with the lighting, but it's getting better.